Galveston police need help identifying a young boy whose body was found Friday evening not far from the ocean surf line in a case that they are treating as a possible homicide.

Local police, surrounding authorities and federal agencies have searched databases but could not find any missing persons cases matching the boy, who is believed to be 3 to 5 years old, officials said at a press briefing in Galveston Sunday.

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"The circumstances are without a doubt suspicious," he said. "There are no answers at this point."

The circumstances surrounding the death grow "more and more suspicious as time goes on," said Joshua Schirard, operations bureau commander at the Galveston Police Department.

This case is unusual because the vast majority of drownings that occur over the summer tourist season across 37 miles of Galveston beach are witnessed or reported by someone accompanying the victim, Schirard said.

"Someone saw them go in the water. Someone tried to save them. Someone helped pull them out and it was just too late," he said. "That's what makes this so different. We don't have bodies just wash up on our beach with no story behind them, much less 3 to 5-year-old children."

The young boy, who may have been at least partially of Hispanic descent, was found by a 911 caller at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the 700 block of Seawall Boulevard. It's a stretch that Schirard described as "not a heavily traversed part of our beach," lying somewhere between two major Galveston beaches, Stewart beach and the region's primary beach near Seawall Boulevard.

There were no distinguishing characteristics that could have led police to identify the child, he said. The boy's body did not appear to have sustained trauma, and was found unclothed – not unusual in drowning cases, in which a few minutes in the surf can remove clothing from a person, Schirard said.

But it is not clear if the child washed up on the surf or if the body was planted in the area. Police have not ruled out human trafficking, and contacted agencies in surrounding counties, federal agencies and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for any records matching the case. Nothing turned up.

Authorities are treating the case as a homicide and enlisted Texas forensic artist Louis Gibson to sketch a portrait of the child, based on photos provided by detectives, over the weekend. Police and Gibson said the body was not severely decomposed and "fairly intact" with no missing limbs.

Officials said they are still waiting for an official report from the medical examiner's office to determine the cause of the child's death – it is not clear the boy had drowned – and asking anyone with information to contact police at 409-765-3776.

"These detectives are working so hard to try to make sure we can get some headway very early on in this case," Schirard said. "Identifying this child is going to be one of the biggest things we can do to direct this case and make sure we can figure out how this happened and what happened out there."